Playtest Feedback: Customized Ship Creation

[LucasC]

This is the second time I've delved into ship creation. I did not attempt to create small starfighter sized ships as I know that is not the intent of the rules at present.

I like this chapter but it is quite dense. I mean to say that there are a lot of interrelated rules that take quite a bit to follow before you finally get to a finished ship product. In your final cut of the book you might consider providing a good variety of pre-generated ships as creating your own will almost certainly not be fore everyone.

Here's some thoughts.
(page numbers from the Mar 20 document)

• A quick list of steps in ship creation would be a nice add (like you have for character and monster creation) something like this -
  • Select ship hull components (class, quality and design)
  • Select subluminal engines
  • Select FTL engines
  • Add superstructure
  • Add armor
  • Select shields
  • Select weapons
  • Choose computer systems
  • Choose sensors
  • Select facilities
  • Select addons
  • Calculate load and penalties
• I think you should separate the rules from the fluff. Having it all intermingled as you do makes everything more confusing. It took me a few times through to understand how the tables on pages 173-174 interacted with those on pages 176.
  • I’d move all the non-rules stuff into an appendix or to the end of the chapter (this includes the random company names pg 166, sample engines pages 173-174, random propulsion options pg 177, etc.).
• Ship cargo units and agility should perhaps be moved from the table on page 163 into the Hull table as that’s really where you need them
• Ship sheet pg 168 should have engine sections separated into FTL v Subluminal since the two types operate independently but the section suggests they add their power together
• Guidelines for a few ‘typical’ ships would be helpful – such as $$$ guides per ship class or even type
  • for example, a ‘typical’ military frigate begins with 810 CU, should keep at least 200 CU for storage and uses the rest focusing on guns and defense after achieving speeds of 4-6 and FTL capability appropriate for the setting. Costs should be no more than 3,000mc. This ship should target a SS of around 50, etc.
• Should armor SOAK be rounded up or down?
• High model shields on smaller space ships will often take up negative cargo space. Presumably you mean for min. space to be 1?
  • For example, navigational shield on small ship model 2 takes 0 space, model 3 takes -1.
• Model number tables are somewhat all over the place. Shields goes to 9, engines to 10, weapon table goes to 11 (it’s easy to figure out the progression, point this out only for consistency sake)
• I found myself wanting to improve just one element of a given item - so for example, improve the damage of my guns or the fuel efficiency of my engines without needing to pump the entire component. Particularly in weapon range. All the options at present seem to require you either improve via quality or model and these pump everything.
• This chapter would be aided greatly by a resource to assist in shipbuilding. I'm working on a spreadsheet to do that but one of your online generators would be helpful. I'll post my spreadsheet when its done.
• If I was supposed to be considering tradeoffs between my FTL speed and my computer system I did not find this to be a challenge at all. The computer systems came as something of an afterthought.
• Not a problem, just an observation, it seems that except for Facilities, the SIZE of all ship components is equal to the ships SIZE but for Facilities they can be any size. Do I rightly understand that?
• Getting my LUX bonus to +110% was quite easy and required only adding common sense things such as a galley, mess hall, chapel and some cabins. This cost me 11% of my 6k budget.

Couple questions

• Are Class (page 163) and Hull (page 170) the same thing?
• Should model # have an impact on cost?

Stuff you might not care about yet as your editors will catch it.

• Table Heading pg176 should read Quality not Size (4th table down)
• Table Heading pg188 should read Space (CU) not Size (1st table)
• Table Quality pg191 in the Sensor Range column the X6 has a capital X

I will post some ship examples when I have them cleaned up. Right now they are just a mess in my spreadsheet.

 

[Morrus]

Awesome! I'm on my phone, so I'll post in more detail later.

Can't wait to see your ships.

I'd love to make a generator, but that's a big, complex one. I sadly don't have the time at present.